Tag: RATED 5/5

PLAYING DEAD BY JESSIE KEANE (ANNIE CARTER #4)

My Rating: 5/5

**NOTE**SPOILERS**

If you haven’t read the previous Annie Carter books, you should read them and not read this review as it will inevitably contain spoilers!

I (for some reason) was under the impression that Annie Carter was part of a trilogy only and that after the third book that was the end. How wrong (and secretly delighted) was I when I realised her new book was featuring the one and only Annie Carter.

As those who have read her previous books will know she is now married to Mafia Mob boss Constantine Barolli. The book takes us straight into the action of Annie in New York with her husband before tragedy strikes. I must admit that it only took me a matter of two or three chapters before I was drawn into Annie’s world again hook line and sinker!

Annie’s life is once again in turmoil and as she heads back to London she has no idea what is in store for her. We once again see the old faithful characters re-appear that have featured in her previous books such as her friend Dolly who now runs the clubs in London for Annie, as well as Ellie and Chris who run the brothels.

In addition to the older friends we meet the newer members of Annie’s family in the form of her stepchildren, and what a bunch they are. Constantine’s three children were fabulous characters and I absolutely hated two of them from the very beginning.

Added to Annie’s pressures of her extended family is the re-appearance of her supposedly dead ex-husband Max which puts a completely different spin on what has happened in the series so far.

The story has incredible pace from the very beginning and we see a slightly more timid Annie try to get her life back together in London. In the beginning I was wondering what had happened to the feisty woman we met in the last three books but thankfully as she fights back to get her life together we once again see her character come back to life.

The book picks up pace nicely and the ending was brilliant (although I figured who the bad guy was around the halfway stage). Jessie Keane has yet again produced an outstanding book, and one that I think Annie Carter fans are going to love. Lots of twists and surprises all the way through, combined with brilliant writing made for a top notch read in my opinion. I suppose now all that’s left to do is count the days until the next Jessie Keane release.

Highly recommended, although I would suggest starting at the first book in the series to gain the background of Annie Carter!

NOW YOU SEE HER BY JAMES PATTERSON AND MICHAEL LEDWIDGE

My Rating: 5/5

I first have to explain that I am a HUGE Patterson fan, but also a HUGE Patterson critic when it comes to his co-written books. There has been much speculation over the years about how much input Patterson has with these books and in my opinion some of his most recent work was diabolical, leaving me to wonder if he even glanced at them, let alone co-written them.

Michael Ledwidge started writing the Michael Bennett series with JP a while back and I am now a die-hard Bennett fan. I do however wonder if more of this book is Michael Ledwidge’s doing with a smattering of the Patterson touch? Maybe that is the secret to this pairing?

This book I was wary of, just because it was a stand alone co-written book and I wasn’t sure whether this would be as awful as the other recent ones, but I needn’t have worried. This book had me hook, line and sinker from chapter one.

It starts in the current day with Nina Bloom in New York with her daughter. After the first introductions are made, we are transported back to the early days in Nina’s life when she met her husband Peter. The book starts off with a bang and the disastrous events that start Nina’s life spiralling. Following the shocking events you can literally feel every emotion of this woman rolling off the page.

We then follow Nina’s life and how everything got her to where she is today. Nina’s husband Peter is a truly despicable character who I loathed from the moment I read about him, but for all the loathing it made for a special read due to the intense feelings I had to the characters in the book.

As Nina’s journey is made you feel the tension and fear build up in her life and then we are catapulted into her journey to try to save both herself and her daughter. There are other more minor characters making appearances but the whole crux of the story centres around Nina and her husband Peter.

I read this in a matter of hours and when the ending was finally reached I felt satisfied that this was the best Patterson book I had read in a while. Actually, I correct myself; I think this was the best Ledwidge book I had read in a while!

The book was everything you would expect, fast, edgy and full of suspense. The perfect book in every way and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was one of those books that made me think it would make a great film! Highly recommended!

Fallen by Karin Slaughter (Will Trent #5)

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My Rating: 5/5

This book opens up with a dramatic starter as Faith returns to her mother’s house and is immediately put in the middle of what looks like a war zone. It makes for some high octane reading very early on. It certainly put me in the frame of mind for the investigation that would follow this crazy situation.

I found that by reading the Will Trent books, I had a feel for the characters Will and Faith, but beyond that there were a lot of unanswered questions. This book seems to address Faith and her history which I liked. The books pace starts kind of frenzied and to be honest doesn’t let up much pace at all throughout the book, it almost made me read with a sense of urgency.

The story however does require an element of concentration, there are a lot of theories and characters names very early on meaning you really do need to pay attention to follow these threads all the way through. Sadly the downside to such an intense book is that as readers you are so drawn in you forget your surroundings (never good when you forget to turn the bath off’).

As the book gets going we see Will Trent with the help of Sara Linton try to discover who is behind the disappearance of Faith’s mother. OF course Will has his doubts about Evelyn, but for the sake of his partner he does everything in his power to find her, even if it means breaking the rules. Will is not the sort of character to break the rules, which is where his boss, and Evelyn’s close friend, Amanda Wagner comes into play.

Amanda is a character that is slightly off kilter, but a character that I absolutely adore. She is a no nonsense old school woman that is determined to find her friend, and she doesn’t care who she has to lie to or trample on to find her. Sara Linton plays the lesser role in the overall story, but as other parts of the series begin to develop, you can see where she is starting to get her life back together.

Following the end of the Grant County series, I was convinced that there would never be a better male lead that Jeffrey Tolliver. I was so wrong, and if I am being completely honest, a little bit smitten with my `new’ favourite male lead Will Trent.

As the story reaches its climax, lots of the parts of the puzzle start to come together. The threads that had been interwoven throughout the book now start to be explained, and the ending was absolutely brilliant.

Yet again I read a fast paced, tense thriller by Karin Slaughter that left me feeling sad I had finished another instalment. Having said that it again has left us as readers with the perfect platform for the next part of the series, and boy do I want to know how that goes. I cannot praise Karin Slaughter highly enough, she is an author that has taken chances, but knew exactly where they were leading, and the pathway she took was sheer genius. If you haven’t read her work before I would strongly suggest you start at the beginning and work your way through them, you won’t be disappointed.

Things We Never Say by Sheila O’Flanagan

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My Rating: 5/5

I was so lucky to receive an early copy of the new Sheila O’Flanagan book. Her covers are always very appealing and this one was no different. Abbey …Anderson is the main character in this story and she is the least likely person to want to change her life. However, she doesn’t realise that a man called Ryan Gilligan will come into her life and give her news that changes everything. When the Irish lawyer Ryan visits her in her home in San Francisco she realises that her whole life is based on a lie. What she needs to do is travel to Dublin to find out a lot more about what she has been told.

Now I know that sounds a little vague, but that’s the general plot of the story and I really don’t like spoilers so that is all I can really say. Abbey is an easy character to like and for the first few chapters I loved the friends and family she was surrounded with. Her relationship with her mother was unexplained, but the reasoning for that becomes evident much later on.

For some reason which I cannot put into words, this book was one that I really didn’t want to put down. It certainly wasn’t all roses for the characters and there really wasn’t a theme of `everyone has a happy ending’. Maybe this was what made me want to continue reading. Sheila O’Flanagan manages to peel away the layers of all the characters and two different families slowly. It means that as the reader you really feel like you are getting to see people’s real colours and as time went on I was swinging wildly between sympathy and annoyance at certain characters.

The second half of the book really dug into the `dirty worlds’ of everybody involved and I managed to finish the second half of the book in one sitting. I have been reading Sheila O’Flanagan’s books for as many years as she has been writing and this one is one of the best I have read of hers. IT certainly has a lot of things going on, plenty of twists in the story and enough tension to make you reach for the headache tablets. This was a story that was a little out of the ordinary, but one that I would highly recommend

GIRL ON THE RUN BY JANE COSTELLO

My Rating: 5/5

I have never read any of Jane Costello’s work but due to reading her favourable reviews on Amazon I decided to give it a go. Thankfully, I can now add her to my never ending list of authors that I MUST continue reading.

The book is just shy of 470 pages and I must admit it took me less than ten pages to fall in love with the main character Abby. In addition to that, Jane Costello’s style of writing is genius. She writes genuinely but with such wit and humour injected into the characters that I found myself laughing out loud on more than one occasion.

The story itself is as suggested by the title about a girl on the run. Unsurprisingly the whole book is about Abby’s quest to run and the reasons surrounding her decision to go ahead with it. This may seem a flimsy plot for the book but Jane Costello has managed to execute it to perfection. In addition to Abby, I seemed to love all the other characters in the book (with the exception of Oliver; who I can’t imagine anybody liking)) and we see small threads of all of their lives as the book progresses. The outcome and ending were what I expected from very early on but that is no surprise to me, and I think that the majority of readers will find that to their liking.

There is something so enjoyable about the way Jane Costello writes and the natural flow of characters; it has been a while since I have read a new author that has all that in this genre. I genuinely loved every part of this book, and I found myself finishing it in just over a day. A truly enjoyable and funny read and I can’t wait to read her other books. If you haven’t given her books a go, you might want to start now, trust me, you won’t regret it!

The Single Girl’s To Do List by Lindsey Kelk

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My Rating: 5/5

I enjoyed reading Lindsey Kelk’s book `I Heart Hollywood’ but I wasn’t prepared for just how much I would love this one. The whole point of reading this type of book is the fact that they are usually fun and light hearted. Sometimes the storylines are predictable but in a way I kind of like knowing I will get the ending I want. When I started reading this book I found myself smiling and smirking as I painfully re-lived moments in my younger years where I was experiencing `the single life’.

The book is a respectable 400 pages, but I have to be truthful and say that the humour started from the time I opened the book. The main character Rachel Summers is an absolute sweetheart who I fell in love with immediately. Her predicament is one that I am sure many readers can sympathise with. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t your rip-roaring, tears streaming down the face kind of humour, but it touched chords with the scenarios and situations Rachel seems to get herself in to.

Add in to the mix Rachel’s two best friends and this book was made for me. Emilie is a woman that is addicted to men, whether it be flirting with them, sleeping with them or getting free drinks off them. Matthew is the six foot plus stunner, who also happens to be gay but definitely not camp. The three of them make an unlikely trio, but their characters are what made this book for me.

We get to see Rachel’s journey from hell as she tries to adapt to a single life. The list is what started her strange journey and it is ultimately the list that creates some very crazy and humorous scenarios. As time went on you could see Rachel getting braver and more daring with herself, and you get the distinct impression you are party of watching her become a stronger person. The book takes us and the trio of friends from London to Canada and watches all three of them struggle to keep up with the craziness.

There were moments in this book when I did laugh out loud and moments where I was smirking to myself, but I cannot fault this book one little bit. I adored everything about it from the people to the places to the crazy and daring challenges Rachel faces. The ending was perfect for me and when I had finished I was truly disappointed.

No, this won’t be everybody’s cup of tea, but it was certainly mine. It’s not intellectually challenging, but frankly when a book makes me smile this much I really don’t care. HIGHLY recommended! Can’t wait to see what Lindsey comes up with next!

No Turning Back by Susan Lewis

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My Rating: 5/5

I only recently read Susan Lewis book Stolen and usually I wouldn’t read two of her books so close together. Her last book was a great read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Although she falls into the Chick Lit genre, I think maybe she should just be put under modern fiction as her style of writing and the sort of books she produces are far from romance stories where everything turns out great.

In her latest release we meet Eva who is the main character in this story. I instantly felt sorry for her but also felt she was a little weak and that was portrayed really well. When her world falls apart we see her character change and this in itself made for a very turbulent book when it comes to real emotions.

The other main characters were Eva’ husband Don, who if I am honest, never really warmed to throughout the whole story. We also meet Eva’s sister Patty and her two adult children Livvy and Jake, as well as Don’s daughter Jasmine. The two characters of Jasmine and Livvy were my favourites and throughout the book you see the development of them as both characters and people.

The story itself is fantastic. There are two major plot threads running throughout the story. One of them is quite obvious from the outset and the other is interlinked throughout the whole book. I can’t imagine that either subject is particularly easy to write about but Susan Lewis has done just that, with remarkable compassion.

Although I cannot quite put my finger on exactly what it is she does, all I know is she does it extremely well. Her books are lovely to read and although not always the happiest of subjects, they are made real and heart warming. This book in particular I thought was amazing, it was so easy to read and although not always with the perfect fairytale ending, so enjoyable. There are many people who will have experienced something like the character Eva and can maybe relate to her a little. Although her character started off as maybe a weak and insecure person it was nice to see her progress as the events in her life forced her to change.

I would highly recommend this book to anybody. Not your bog-standard chick lit type of book, but thoroughly good!

The Victim by Kimberley Chambers (O’Hara/Mitchell’s #3)

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My Rating: 5/5

*If you plan on reading the first two parts of this trilogy please do not read this review as it will inevitably contain spoilers, as the story is so much further along now*

Every now and then as a reader you come along a new author that blows you away. You wonder how you had never picked up one of their books and if anybody else can match up to them. This is how I felt when I started reading Martina Cole in the early days. Don’t get me wrong, she is still a great author but I found myself becoming more and more disappointed with her books. When I picked up my first Kimberley Chambers book I was transported back to what I fondly call the Martina Cole `early days’. Kimberley Chambers has written three excellent stand-alone books and has now finished and released the final part of the O’Hara/Mitchell trilogy.

Having read the first two parts I had a good idea of the characters and what they had been through to get to the stages they were at now. The Mitchell and O’Hara family are still battling, only this time Eddie Mitchell’s daughter Frankie is in prison and there are new additions to the family such as Eddie’s partner Gina. The characters themselves are first class and they are rough around the edges and frighteningly real. Because this was part 3, I was itching to know what would become of the two families and boy was I unprepared for the rollercoaster I was taken on. The book is a hefty 432 pages and we are thrown straight in at the deep end with both families from page 1.

The wonderful thing about reading her books is the sheer speed at which you are catapulted into the characters worlds. I worry about writing too much involving the characters and storyline as it is easy to give away spoilers but I will say this. You will be on the edge of your seat and will not want to put the book down. This book was read in just over a day and it didn’t leave my side for too long.

The last quarter of the book is full of suspense and what if’s and I found myself jigging up and down because I was so eager to get to the end. I wasn’t disappointed at all and thought that Kimberley Chambers has written her best work yet. The book was wrapped up nicely, but not perfectly which again adds that touch of realism to it. The only disappointing thing for me is that as usual I have been impatient and will now have the job of counting the months until her next release.

People tend to read the same type if books and I have seen many comments saying that she is as good as Martina Cole. That statement is in my opinion incorrect, she is better than Martina Cole. For all you people that are on the lookout for a new author, if you haven’t tried KC yet, maybe now is the time to start!

Gridlock by Sean Black (Ryan Lock and Ty Johnson #3)

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Adult movie actress Raven Lane is one of the most lusted after women in America, with millions of fans to prove it. But when a headless corpse turns up in the trunk of her car, she realizes that fame carries a terrible price.
Fearing for her life, and with the LAPD seemingly unable to protect her, Raven turns to former military bodyguard Ryan Lock for help. As events spiral out of control, Lock is drawn into a dangerous world where money rules, sex is a commodity to be bought and sold, and no one can be trusted, least of all his beautiful new client…
My Rating: 5/5

Kat’s Review: I read Sean Blacks first and second books and absolutely loved them. Ryan Lock is an ex-military bodyguard who has worked private security and has now set up his own company that can be called upon for any type of job. He has a partner Ty Johnson who is an ex-marine who Ryan met whilst in Iraq. Together they make a formidable team and seem unafraid to take on any type of work.

In this book, Ryan and Ty are asked to work for famous adult movie actress Raven Lane. Raven is lusted after by many people across the world and has an army of fans, however, when a headless corpse turns up in the boot of her car she feels compelled to get Ryan and Ty in for her private security. Before long what seems like a simple stalking case gone wrong, turns into a horrific crime spree by what looks like a cold blooded killer.

Sean Black is now on his third book and you can tell that he is pushing himself and the book came across even better than his first two. The book is very fast paced, and this is a lot easier to read as things start off relatively simple but before long the pace picks up and you are thrown along with the characters as things progressively get worse.

The one major difference between this book and his previous is that the murders and crime scenes are a lot more graphic and descriptive. In my opinion this made the book a lot better because you then start questioning who is on the right side of the law and who isn’t. There are quite a lot of twists and turns too and I must say that I was shocked and saddened by the ending. Although shocked, it is an absolutely first class platform for the next book which I cannot wait to get my hands on. Sean Black is certainly coming into his own in this genre and I think this is his best yet, I can only hope that they continue to be this good.

Dead End by Leigh Russell (Geraldine Steel #3)

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My Rating: 5/5

In Leigh Russell’s third installment of ‘DI Geraldine Steel’ Series we once again see Geralding thrown into a messy and disturbing case. In this particular book, headmistress Abigail Kirby is found dead in a park, but in this instance it seems that her tongue has been cut out. DI Geraldine Steel, along with her colleague Ian Peterson are put on the case, and when a potential witness is blinded and murdered, the case seems to get out of control.

I admit that I am a sucker when it comes to ‘series’ featuring the same people. In particular I liked Leifh Russell as I have read each of her books from her debut novel ‘Road Closed’. This time around the writing is so much better as the story flows so easily. LeighRussell is a writer that is going from strength to strength with every book she writes.

I found that in the first book we didn’t learn enough about Geraldine herself, or the people she worked with. In this book Geraldine’s personal life seems to run alongside her career and we get to see the more emotional side to her which I loved. We also see a lot more of Ian Peterson and this is a true testemant to how much better this book is than her first.

The characters have developed so much more and as reader you feel like you are taking their life journey with them. Geraldine is far from perfect but is a complete workaholic who has some serious personal issues that can sometimes affect her judgement. It is things like this that add the touch of realism to this book.

The crimes in the book are as ususal gruesome and bloody, and extremely well detailed, without being too over the top. We see the workings of real police who make some huge errors along the way (which is always nice).

I only have one criticism about the book and that is that I had a sneaking suspicion of the killer around halfway through. Having said that, I do that with many of the books I read. Apart from being suspicious (and then being correct in my assumption) this book is absolutely, 100% the best book Leigh Russell has written so far. I am now eagerly awaiting the next installment and there were major parts of Geraldine’s life that are unanswered and I realloy need to know more about.

Thoroughly reccommended and I truly think that Leigh Russell has now created a series that can rival other major crime writers out there. I would suggest starting at book one and working your way through as by the time you get to this one you will be itching to read book 4. Can’t wait for the next one!